Human Rights First Report: Slammed Doors: Use of Asylum Cooperative Agreements to Unlawfully Reject Asylum Cases

Here is the report. From the summary:

"This report focuses on the current administration’s systematic use of [Asylum Cooperative Agreements with other nations) as a pretext to “pretermit,” or summarily reject, the asylum cases of tens of thousands of people with pending immigration court cases, without the immigration judge holding a merits hearing to formally review the asylum application and consider the submitted evidence and the applicant’s testimony. When an asylum applicant’s case is pretermitted, they are ordered removed to one or more third countries with which the United States has an ACA. The report documents the stories of Human Rights First’s clients and other asylum seekers whose cases have been pretermitted on the basis of the ACAs under the second Trump administration, including people who fled persecution due to their sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, political opinion, and Indigenous identity. Their stories illustrate the ways in which pretermission of asylum cases violates due process rights and protections under U.S. asylum law. These summary asylum denials immediately destabilize the lives of individuals and families across the country, subjecting them to prolonged detention, removal, loss of employment, and constant fear." (bold added).